Aggressiveness is a characteristic that tends to reward fantasy
owners more times than not. In the NFL, an offensive line will sometimes
hold up long enough to give the quarterback enough time to beat
man coverage down the field and make the defense look foolish against
a fierce pass rush. More often than not, though, when a defense
brings the heat and forces the action, crisis management becomes
the name of the game for the opposing team.

In that same vein, I hope to apply that same kind of pressure
to the owners in all of my leagues by beating my opponents to
the punch in regards to personnel moves. Sometimes, reaching a
conclusion about a player too quickly is much like trying to blitz
Peyton Manning – dangerous and painful. However, coming
to a correct conclusion two weeks or two minutes quicker than
your opponents is considered foresight. Fantasy owners can be
a uneasy lot, knowing that one two-or-three-game losing streak
can wreak irreparable damage to his/her team’s chances to
make a visit to the fantasy postseason. But just as it is in the
NFL and in life, it’s hard to land the big prize by playing
scared. Thus, I will strive each week to help each of you become
a smart blitzer, so to speak.

For fantasy football owners, Week 10 represents the end of bye
weeks and the start of fantasy football “crunch time”.
I suppose there is something to be said about the symmetry of
a 13-week fantasy football regular season, considering three weeks
of non-bye weeks sandwich the seven-week stretch of byes that
start in Week 4 and end in Week 10. But as we embark on the second
round of full-strength fantasy football, where do owners go from
here? The answer is detailed yet simple in my estimation:

For those owners who play in leagues with late trade deadlines,
identify where your team stands. If you stand atop your division
after nine weeks and own one of the higher-scoring teams in your
league with a 6-3 record or better, take a fine-tooth comb to
your team and identify your weakness – or at least the player(s)
most likely to disappoint. Not only is trading fun, it is a necessary
part of winning just about any competitive league. Hoping your
team continues to “roll” as is can be a very dangerous
strategy if a small part of your team has been covering up for
deficiencies in other areas. In those leagues where a potential
fantasy playoff stud like Pierre Thomas may have been dropped
(this just happened in one of my leagues this week), pick him
up and stash him away. I’m sure you’d be surprised
how often I have taken a chance on an injured player like Thomas
around this time of year – not believing I would need him
at any point – only to ride him to a fantasy title when
he ends up outperforming my RB1.

For owners hovering around .500, I suggest you do the same (be
critical of where your team may be coming up short), but make
winning the rest of your regular season games the highest priority
when it comes to trading – as opposed to lining up your
team with a softer fantasy playoff schedule. (I’ll get into
an example of that in one of my leagues in just a moment with
Terrell Owens and Reggie Wayne.)

For those owners who are past their trade deadlines, focus solely
on acquiring the best player(s) you can find off the waiver wire
each week. Obviously, there are exceptions (such as you lost Matthew
Stafford this past week and don’t have another QB on your
roster) but for the most part, picking up a potential stud at
a position of less need serves three potential purposes: 1) it
improves your overall roster –which can never be considered
a bad thing, 2) it allows you to keep that player away from someone
else in your league that might be able to use him – better
on your bench than your fellow competitor’s starting lineup
– and 3) it provides you with a potential fantasy playoff
hero.

These observations may seem rather elementary to veteran fantasy
owners, but I have been playing fantasy football for well over
a decade and still need to remind myself each year that looking
for potential upgrades for each of my teams is a task that doesn’t
end until the season ends, no matter how good my team is. Sometimes,
a 6-3 or 7-2 record can lull an owner into a false sense of security.
Again, allow me to remind you that fantasy football is much like
playing the stock market. Investing in stable stocks (QBs with
pass-heavy systems and good receivers, RBs in run-friendly systems
operating behind solid offensive lines, etc.) is often the way
to go and tends to pay off big during the fantasy postseason.

Consistency down the stretch.

For instance, I referred to a trade in last
week’s Blitz in which I traded Owens and Knowshon Moreno
in an effort to acquire Wayne. After a couple of weeks, I look
like a loser in that deal. But I am comforted by the consistency
Wayne provides and I feel very good about his ability to perform
at a high level against Tennessee, Jacksonville (a team he has
abused lately) and Oakland in Weeks 14-16. Do I feel as strongly
about Owens on a sinking Bengals’ ship? Will he consistently
match Wayne week after week as he opposes the likes of the Jets,
Saints, Steelers, Browns and Chargers over the final five weeks
of the fantasy season? I doubt it. This is just another example
of why I like to constantly analyze the schedule. In short,
I want a team of consistent players who have the path of least
resistance at the end of the season.

Getting back to the subject at hand, a fantasy owner’s
goal at the end of the bye weeks should be to have as many no-brainer
starts in his/her fantasy lineup as possible. This is good not
only for an owner’s sanity, but also because over the next
three weeks (Weeks 11-13), wins will be at a premium. Losses created
as a result of choosing between two or three mediocre options
at a position each week at this point of the season can often
result in a long and bitter offseason of wondering what could
have been. If there are qualities I’ve learned about winning
and losing over the years, it is that both winning and losing
are habits, but while one never gets old, the other gets old fast.

With today’s lesson (or reminder) out of the way, let’s
take a look at the updated workload and target numbers. Once
again, the cutoff at each position is five touches or targets/game.
To help provide some perspective this week, the average FPPT (fantasy
points/touch) for the 64 RBs that qualify for my list above is
0.77. Feel free to use that number as a barometer to help you
evaluate who is making the grade in that department and who is
not.

Quick Hits: How ridiculously productive
has Arian
Foster been this year? At 1.10 FPPT in PPR leagues, he is ahead
of the pace set by Chris
Johnson last year (1.04) and Maurice
Jones-Drew in 2008 (1.07). In fact, I had to go back to 2006
to find averages that high for RB who received a significant amount
of his team’s touches out of the backfield – LaDainian
Tomlinson (1.16) and Jones-Drew (1.28). Even though the run
schedule does increase in difficulty over the second half, I have
been extremely impressed by the holes Houston’s offensive line has
been able to create as well as the patience and vision Foster brings
to the table week in and week out. As the Texans stand at the exact
midpoint of their season, Foster is on pace for 312 carries, 1,724
rushing yards and 18 rushing TDs to go along with 64 catches, 630
receiving yards and two receiving scores!

Hillis has three 100-yd rushing games in
2010.

One part of football that never fails to amaze me is the concept
of how a defense knows what is coming and still cannot stop it.
Granted, the Patriots did not enter Week 9 as an elite run-stopping
defense, but just about everyone knew going into their game against
Cleveland that the key to stopping the Browns’ offense was loading
up the box and stuffing the run game. I am well aware this New
England defense is not the same kind of incredibly-talented, veteran-laden
unit the team became synonymous for during its Super Bowl run.
I also understand that a younger defense is more prone to playing
below its full potential on the road, but how does one explain
the Pats allowing 94 more rushing yards this week against a one-dimensional
Browns’ offense than it has against any other opponent? With that
said, let’s give a ton of credit to Peyton
Hillis and the Browns’ offensive line. Part of being able
to field a productive offense in the NFL is figuring out “who
you are” and sticking with it. With a rookie QB and the best receiver
being a Patriot discard (Ben Watson), the Browns have decided
to ride their offensive line and a ground game that has had its
moments over the years (Jamal Lewis, 2007; Jerome
Harrison, late 2009). As long as the line continues to remain
relatively healthy, Hillis remains a solid bet to finish out the
season as a top-notch fantasy RB1. Much like Foster, the upcoming
schedule isn’t exactly soft, but Hillis’ involvement in the gameplan
is making him pretty much matchup-proof.

During the offseason, Lions HC Jim Schwartz hinted at his desire
to use Jahvid Best in much the same way as his old team (the Titans)
used Chris Johnson. Certainly, from a production standpoint, the
rookie hasn’t met those lofty standards outside of one incredible
game (3.3 YPC and 353 yards rushing for Best; 4.9 YPC and 715
yards rushing for Johnson at the same time during his rookie season).
But Best’s owners should take some solace in the fact that
he is actually on the same workload pace that CJ was in 2008 (298;
Johnson had 294), is playing through a painful toe injury and
is being used in the way he should be used right now as Detroit
is attempting to build its offensive juggernaut. What I mean by
the last part of that statement is OC Scott Linehan would be foolish
to pound the speedy rookie into the middle of an offensive line
that lacks the talent up front to maul opponents like the Titans
have done in recent years. As a result, Detroit has decided to
get Best on the outside more often by using him as a receiver
(tied with LeSean McCoy for first among RBs with 41 receptions).
As painful as it is for Best owners who were hoping his first
two weeks in the NFL was how the rest of the season was going
to play out, his future is still incredibly bright. Schwartz is
a strong believer that football games are won up front, so you
can be sure the Lions’ top offseason priority will be adding
some maulers up front to let Best do his best CJ impression starting
next year. His drop in production this year can be traced back
to when he injured his toe, so while it’d be foolish for
me to say he is ready to become the next Johnson, I see no reason
why Best isn’t ready to become a full-season fantasy darling
in 2011. As for this season, he should be viewed as a high-end
RB2.

Are we witnessing the start of another late-season opportunity
(or explosion) for Shonn Greene? For those owners who may not
remember how the Jets’ RB situation unfolded last year,
Thomas Jones carried the load exceedingly well all season long
only to look his age at playoff time, paving the way for Greene
to take the postseason by storm. It’s too early to say we
are seeing that scenario play out again, but Tomlinson has been
at 3.7 YPC or less in each of the last three games (two of which
were matchups that he theoretically should have been able to exploit
in Denver and Detroit. Conversely, Greene has been at 4.6 or better
in those same games.) As one of LT’s biggest supporters
over the past few years when most fantasy pundits had him long
past his prime, I’m not ready to suggest he is about to
lose his job; again, my hope is to point out that prior to this
three-game stretch, he did not have a single game as a Jet with
less than a 4.7 YPC. Tomlinson is going to remain the more valuable
player of the two RBs simply because of his contributions in the
passing game (30 receptions is tied for sixth-best among RBs),
but it wouldn’t be all that surprising if Greene can eventually
turn this into a near 50-50 split on the ground by the time the
NFL postseason rolls around.

Getting back to ridiculous FPPT averages, how about Danny Woodhead?
In addition to being the newer and younger version of Kevin Faulk,
Woodhead has settled into an 11-touch/game routine and while represents
a lower upside than BenJarvus Green-Ellis, he is easily a more
consistent alternative in fantasy than his teammate. Calling him
this season’s version of 2009 Darren Sproles may be a bit
much, but in New England’s thinned-out backfield, he has
become a pretty strong weekly flex play.

I’ll close out this part of the Blitz by discussing the
highly disappointing RB situation in Carolina. Very few would
argue that DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart is about as
good as it gets when it comes to a 1-2 punch in the NFL from a
talent standpoint. But as I have said from time to time over the
years, talent doesn’t always win the day in fantasy or reality.
Both members of “Double Trouble” averaged over 5.0
YPC last season but are a full yard/carry (or two in Stewart’s
case) off that mark this season. Because I fashion myself as a
researcher who can find answers to questions others cannot answer,
I went to the each player’s season splits to attempt to
see if there was an issue up front (since we pretty much know
Williams and Stewart are highly skilled). Here are the results
I uncovered; the first number will be the backs’ YPC while
the second one in parentheses will be the number of rushing attempts:

DW2009 (YPC)

JS2009 (YPC)

DW2010 (YPC)

JS2010 (YPC)

Wide Right

3.2 (13)

6.8 (45)

2.9 (14)

2.9 (21)

Right

5.9 (45)

4.5 (37)

2.3 (4)

3 (5)

Middle

4.6 (85)

3.8 (71)

4.3 (41)

4 (26)

Left

6.3 (44)

4.7 (35)

2.1 (9)

1.5 (2)

Wide Left

4.8 (29)

6.8 (33)

6.1 (19)

1.7 (15)

Taking a quick glance at last season, Williams struggled to run
wide right while Stewart was slightly below the usual league average
of 4.0 up the middle. Given the limited opportunities Williams
had wide right (13 carries), the physical nature of the Panthers’
rushing attack (156 combined carries up the middle) and the fact
that were in clock-killing mode in about half of their games,
those numbers are easily forgivable when one considers just how
productive they were everywhere else.

This season, however, has been a completely different story.
While the production up the middle hasn’t changed all that
much – which speaks well for C Ryan Kalil – the only
other number that is even passable is Williams’ 6.1 YPC
to the wide left. Every other average in 2010 is a full yard or
more under the 4.0 benchmark. Some of that ineffectiveness can
be blamed on the Carolina defense for putting its offense at a
disadvantage on the scoreboard (which doesn’t allow either
back to run against a tired defense late in games) and some more
of the criticism can fall on the shoulders of the best run-blocker
on the team, RT Jeff Otah, who has yet to play a game this season
and was placed on IR earlier this week. But how do we explain
such a dramatic downturn? Carolina hasn’t exactly featured
an all-world passing game in recent years but still has been able
to put up healthy numbers in the running game, which suggests
that – along with the absence of Otah – the left side
of LT Jordan Gross and LG Travelle Wharton are falling short of
expectations. I also get the sense that apathy has set in down
in Carolina due to a lack of personnel moves over the past offseason.
Expect a complete housecleaning in the coaching and front office
ranks this offseason.

In the short term, however, make a move and grab Mike Goodson
off the waiver wire. With all the injuries in the Panthers’
backfield, he is in line for his first career start against Tampa
Bay. He’s a gifted receiver out of the backfield that is
certainly talented enough to take advantage of a good matchup.
With all the backfields that are in flux at this time of the year,
a savvy fantasy owner cannot turn a blind eye to a situation in
which one runner is set to receive 15-20 touches, no matter how
disappointing a team has been this season.

Quick Hits: I must admit I’m
stunned that Chad Ochocinco continues to draw double teams or, at
the very least, a safety over the top while Terrell Owens burns
defenses week after week. This is a trend I expect to see reversed
in the near future as Owens has put together the best five-game
stretch by a WR since Torry Holt lit up the NFL back in 2003. According
to Steelers’ HC Mike Tomlin, the main reason Ocho saw the
heavy coverage he did on Monday was due the fact that he was the
“single-receiver side guy”. To me, that roughly translates
to “let’s frustrate Ocho and hope that the embarrassment
of getting shut down on a national stage will be more than his ego
can take”. I can remember several times throughout the MNF
game when Owens lined up in the slot and Ocho was out wide on the
same side; each time, T.O. was left in single coverage.

In the end, I have become convinced that Bengals OC Bob Bratkowski’s
time is coming to an end in his current role. This offseason’s
mission statement was largely about adding enough weapons to the
Cincinnati offense to enable Carson Palmer to reclaim his place
among the elite QBs in the game again. Instead, each Bengals’
game seems to feature about five pass plays in which the main
receiver runs a wrong route, one or two plays in which Palmer
throws an unforgivable pass into coverage and a number of holding
or false start penalties that end up creating third-and-long situations.
The fact the Bengals are so disjointed on offense (especially
early in games) speaks to a lack of focus by the players, but
it also says a great deal about a coordinator not being able to
get through to his personnel. My point about Bratkowski is simply
this: when the same problems creep up game after game, it means
mediocrity is being accepted at some point during the week. Considering
Bratkowski is in his 10th season with the Bengals (and seventh
with Palmer), the offense should be hitting on all cylinders with
Palmer running the no-huddle as effortlessly as he did 3-4 years
ago and operating like a well-oiled machine. Suffice it to say
that it is not.

It wasn’t too long ago when Marques Colston was being considered
as a 2010 “fantasy bust”. It’s amazing how far
33 targets, 24 catches and two touchdowns over the last three
contests go in changing opinions. Perhaps what is most surprising
to me is that he currently stands fourth in receptions (54) among
receivers. Yes, his number is somewhat inflated by the fact he
is the only WR in the top 20 not to have already served his bye
week, but it would take a monster week by a number of receivers
in Week 10 for him to fall out of the top ten. Colston’s
yards per catch is down substantially (2.8 YPC from his career
average) and he is on pace for a career-low four scores, but things
only figure to get better when the Saints finally get healthy
on offense. His PPR owners should be thrilled about the 96-catch
pace he is on, which would be just two off his career high. Considering
he faces a few beatable secondaries after the bye (Seattle and
Dallas stand out the most), his final TD numbers may end up looking
Colston-like after all.

Just as quickly as I suggested the Panthers’ Steve Smith
was on the verge of being trustworthy again in last week’s
Blitz, he is better off on your bench once again. The season-ending
injury to Matt Moore means eight games with some combination of
rookie QBs Jimmy Clausen or Tony Pike, neither of which inspires
a great deal of confidence – especially now in the injury-ravaged
Carolina backfield. Now in his 10th season, Smith will likely
be viewed as a receiver in decline as he has posted consecutive
underwhelming seasons in fantasy. While there may be a small shred
of truth to Smith may be falling out of his prime at age 31, he
is someone to keep in mind for a bounce-back season in 2011 should
he be lucky enough to be granted a legit NFL quarterback for the
first time in years.

Dwayne Bowe has become the subject of some debate in the fantasy
community over the last month. Along with the injured Kenny Britt,
the duo’s seven touchdowns apiece catch the eye, especially
when one considers neither wideout has more than 26 catches (Bowe;
Britt has 23). Despite starting the season out firmly on his bandwagon,
I have been driving the anti-Bowe cause for some time and will
continue to do so. Why the dislike? The short answer is Bowe’s
current 1:3.71 TD/catch ratio, which is highly unlikely to continue.
The last receiver I can find with that kind of ratio is former
Jaguar Reggie Williams back in 2007 (10 TDs on 38 catches). It
would be one thing if Bowe was a feared deep threat (fewer opportunities
but more opportunity for big plays and TDs) or had a upper-echelon
QB, but he has neither of those things going for him nor is he
his team’s most trustworthy receiver anymore (I believe
Tony Moeaki holds that distinction). Bowe’s score in Week
9 was due to Oakland not being lined up correctly when the ball
was snapped, which is just the latest in a long line of mental
lapses against inferior secondaries that have led to touchdowns
for Bowe. In no way am I suggesting that he won’t find the
end zone again this season, but TDs in football are highly variable
and Cassel is playing much worse than his stats indicate. And
for those owners that hope he’ll be there when they need
him the most in the fantasy playoffs, good luck. The Chiefs play
at the Chargers and the Rams before hosting the Titans in Week
16. St. Louis has proven to be a tough defense at home this year
while San Diego and Tennessee have been very stingy this year
when it comes to allowing WR scores (a total of seven scores in
17 combined games).

While it is easy to be critical of Al Davis’ drafts over
the last decade or so, he has done a fine job over the past two
drafts of finding mid-round receivers who are NFL-quality playmakers.
Last year, the Raiders welcomed fourth-rounder Louis Murphy, three
rounds after selecting Darrius Heyward-Bey. A year and a half
into their careers, Murphy has a substantial lead in that horserace.
This past offseason, the Raiders went after another speed WR (as
they are prone to do) in the fourth round when they selected Clemson’s
Jacoby Ford. Known primarily for his prowess as a track athlete
and inconsistency on the football field in college, Ford did something
in Week 9 no one else in the NFL has done up to this point this
season – make Chiefs CB Brandon Flowers look average –
and he looked great doing it, with at least two catches that should
tell you everything you need to know about his incredible potential
as a receiver. (For those who haven’t been paying attention,
Flowers has emerged as a top 10-15 CB in the league. In fact,
as late as mid-October, Flowers had allowed 81 yards to opposing
receivers on 31 targets.) When Murphy is finally able to return
to the field, I fully expect that he will resume starting with
DHB, but Ford showed so much against Kansas City in Week 9 that
he deserves a shot at unseating Heyward-Bey. If he gets that shot,
Oakland may finally have two receivers worth using in fantasy.

Quick Hits: With fantasy’s top
two TEs out with injuries and three more on a bye, the path was
clear for someone to make significant headway on the leaderboard
in Week 9. That somebody turned out to be hyped rookie Aaron Hernandez,
who caught his first two TD passes as a pro in the blowout loss
to the Browns. There is no doubt some luck was involved and that
he benefited from the struggles that fellow rookie Rob Gronkowski
had in every phase of the game. (The first score was tipped by Gronkowski
at the goal line and ricocheted nicely into the hands of Hernandez,
who did a great job of getting both feet down in the back of the
end zone. The second score was on a play-action fake that I have
seen Gronkowski convert a time or two already this season with a
couple yards of the end zone.) It is unlikely Hernandez will steal
more of the red-zone work from Gronkowski just because of his work
in Week 9, but the fact that he converted both times may lead to
more red-zone work– a situation in which he has been removed
from the game on many occasions. In PPR, Hernandez currently stands
ninth overall among TEs with a very respectable 11.6 fantasy points/game.

It’s too easy sometimes to say that a young player “hits
the rookie wall”. I believe when it is all said and done,
there will be plenty of people who suggest that is happening right
now to Jermaine Gresham. I couldn’t disagree more. Terrell
Owens has emerged as Carson Palmer’s favorite target and
rightfully so. But I have yet to see the Bengals use their rookie
TE in the way I imagined they would when they drafted him. With
two scores in his first five games, it appeared he was about to
settle in as a Visanthe Shiancoe-type of TE this year in which
he would be one of the featured options in the red zone. However,
he has become an afterthought there and just about everywhere
else as he hasn’t recorded more than 35 yards in a single
game since Week 4. Gresham, Owens and Chad Ochocinco are all players
that can stretch the field, but none of those players are being
used in that fashion, which is another argument of mine as to
why their offensive coordinator needs to be shown the door.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Shiancoe went back to his productive
ways the same week Randy Moss left town. Sometimes in fantasy,
it isn’t always easy to find answers to all the cause-effect
questions we encounter. This one, however, wasn’t too hard.
Whether Brett Favre felt obligated to target Moss or not is debatable,
but Shiancoe has scored twice and posted no fewer than 66 yards
in the three games pre- and post-Moss in which he started and
finished. In the four games Moss played in Minnesota, Shiancoe
was held out of the zone and finished with 38 yards or less each
time.

Suggestions, comments, musings about the article or fantasy football
in general? e-mail me.